Advantages

Disadvantages

I'd be lost without them now

Whilst rummaging around a Curry's store one day I came across this Dyson Clean and Tidy kit for £20. This seemed like a good deal and so i googled to compare prices on my phone, everyone else was selling it for between £35 and £50 and so i thought i might as well try it.

~Dyson~For those who don't know, Dyson is a company which designs and manufactures vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, bladeless fans and heaters. James Dyson, frustrated with a Hoover Junior vacuum cleaner and inspired by a saw mill, James spent the next 20 or so years developing the bag less Dyson vacuum cleaner with cyclone technology. It's fair to say that they sell quite well. The Clean and Tidy kit provides accessories that fit all Dyson vacuum cleaners.

~In the box~The pack contains three brand new and sparkly accessories for the Dyson:

a soft dusting brush for light household dusta mattress toola useful up-top tool to get to those hard to reach places

Also provided is a storage bag that can roll up on be hooked over something and hang down, like a roll up make-up bag. It has spaces for the three accessories as well as three other pockets, one with a zip. I keep mine hung up on a hook on the cupboard door and generally just carry the tools around so whilst it is pretty and nice to have it doesn't really add to the product other than by providing storage.

The final piece of kit in the box should be an adapter required for Dyson models DC01 to DC18. I say should as I had no adapter in my box and as i have a DC07 Dyson upright, my pretty little tools had to stay in the box. (Please note, description for this listing says four brushes, mine had three,but has the same product name and details).

~The ability to adapt~The good people of Dyson, thinking ahead, had placed some text on the side of the box containing an email address to use should you be missing the adapter. So i wrote my email, pessimistically thinking they'll take months to send it or try to charge me for it, thus the cynic I've become from years of bad customer service. I was wrong, the adapter was delivered to me free of charge within the week of me contacting them (And it was over the Christmas holidays). This was my first time using Dyson customer services and i have to say i was very impressed with their response and prompt action. Now that i had my adapter i was ready to clean.

~The Mattress Tool~Made entirely from silver colour plastic, it looks like a larger version of the little triangular flat adapter that comes with most vacuums but it is so much more. I vacuum my mattress with the Dyson every month or so and get quite a few dog hairs and muck off, not a great amount though. with this adapter I could literally see the difference in the see through muck cylinder. It collected a lot of muck much to both my fascination and horror, I'd only just cleaned it a few days ago with the regular adapter. Normally and adapters placed on the Dyson pipe will suck too hard to move over surfaces like a mattress but the adapter gave less resistance whilst collecting a lot more muck so it is easy to go over a large area. I don't know what it does or how it does it but I am very impressed.

~The Soft Brush~This bush goes the opposite way to most other tools, sticking out of the front of the pipe rather than from side to side. It's main body is clear plastic and lots of little angled brushes as well as a soft felt like bottom. The accessory is designed for dusting. I was slightly dubious about this tool, thinking that surely if i try to dust the mantle with this it would suck everything off as the Dyson is pretty powerful (I once got a blind cord stuck in the pipe, was not pretty). I tried it around a windowsill and picture frames first, thinking they're too big to be sucked up completely. All I can say is wow, i will never need a duster cloth again. It's gentle and doesn't suck everything into it and yet at the same time it gets everything very clean. I even used it to polish some glass ornaments.

~The Up-top Tool~This is very similar in purpose to the soft bush except it goes around corners. No... it really does. The tool twists and rotates in on itself to help you get in corners and on high furniture. It is brilliant for getting dust off the top of door frames on the wall TV without having to contort your arms to get the vacuum pipe up there. Because it is quite gentle I've also found it works really well on glass lamp shapes, especially the upright ones that i always avoid cleaning as the dust gets everywhere.

~Ease of Use~For those who don't need the adapter, it's as simple as clicking it on as you would with your normal accessories. If you do need the adapter, yes it is a little bit of a pain sticking the adapter and then the tool on but it is so worth it. To get around switching i do all the dusting first with the adapter then take it off and do all the normal hoovering.

~Conclusion~Ok, technically this piece of kit is not essential, i could stop being lazy and get the polish and good ol' yellow duster and do the job myself (Whilst couching from the smell of the polish and sneezing coz of the dust flying around). For £20 though I can make my life so much easier (and cleaner!!), is a bargain really.

This review is published under my user name on both Ciao and Dooyoo. January 2013